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EVALUATING THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATION USE AND SYMPTOM TRAJECTORIES IN CLINICAL HIGH-RISK YOUTH FOR PSYCHOSIS**

Abstract

Our study deepens the understanding of psychotropic medication's role in symptom progression among youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P). We tapped into the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study 3 (NAPLS3) data, examining 253 CHR-P diagnosed individuals out of an initial pool of 807. Participants were medication-free at baseline and were observed for the introduction of antipsychotic or antidepressant treatment prior to the subsequent 2-month follow-up assessment and examined the severity of symptoms classified into Positive, Negative, Disorganization, and General categories, as measured by the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS) and the Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS). The core hypothesis is that, compared to CHR-P individuals who do not receive psychotropic medication, individuals who begin psychotropic treatment after baseline will show reductions in symptom severity at the 2-month follow-up. We performed an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc tests to explore significant changes in symptom scores across distinct medication groups, from baseline to the 2-month juncture. Our results so far suggest that, barring the Disorganization group, all other symptom domains showed significant improvement post-medication initiation. Particularly, individuals starting antipsychotic treatment exhibited substantial reductions across all symptom categories. This in-depth analysis is poised to shed light on the nuanced effects of psychotropic interventions, guiding future therapeutic strategies for CHR-P populations. Future research will focus on showing distinct impacts of medication groups on the symptom scores controlling for sex, age, and baseline scores.

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